November is in the books and that means it is time for me to share my financial results from the past month.    If you missed any of my past financial results posts, you can find them HERE.

We’ll begin with how my time was spent for this past month.  This month I worked every week day of the month with the exception of Thanksgiving Day which I took completely off, and about half the day off on Black Friday, which I did manage to get some sourcing in on.   I also worked quite a few weekend days this month as well to increase my inventory levels for the holiday season.  Over the month, I averaged about 65 hours per week specifically related to the results I am sharing here.  This doesn’t include time spent on any other business activities.

Before we get to the numbers, there is one more topic to discuss.  My goal with sharing my financial results is to show what can be done, and is not meant to be seen as bragging or anything of the sort.  I want to show that working hard and sticking with your plan can pay off.  If the results turn out to be poor at any time I will share that too.

With that said, let’s get into the numbers for November.  I want to provide as much clarity as possible into what I am doing on a month to month basis (if you have suggestions for additions to these posts, please let me know!).  The numbers below are basically the profits that I am making for the month.  The profits are calculated only on items that have been sold and shipped during the month.  They were calculated by taking selling prices, minus all fees, minus all shipping and packaging costs, and subtracting the cost of the items.  Certain important numbers such as: COGS, inbound shipping to amazon, customer returns, supplies, storage fees, rent, and services have been broken out separately.  The FBA profits number factors in reimbursements from amazon for items lost or damaged at the warehouse.  This will NOT be the exact number that goes on my tax returns as there will be additional deductions for cell phone, home office, etc.  However, some of these are costs I would generally be incurring anyway, so for simplicity I will be leaving them out of the calculations.  It’s also possible that I missed a receipt or 2 and the spending numbers may be updated slightly, but all numbers from amazon/eBay are 100% accurate.  Also for clarity, this does not include any income from any other sources, it is simply my income from amazon and eBay. 

November 2014 Financial Results

Notes: These are pretax income numbers and mileage has been calculated at the IRS rate of $0.56/mile.  MF stands for merchant fulfilled and FBA is fulfilled by amazon.

This month was up pretty significantly across the board.  November was my best month so far in both sales and profits by a wide margin.   Commissions were up significantly this month as I have a friend who is working with me full time, so the increase is to be expected, and commissions should be higher by at least 3 times this amount in December.   Inbound shipping is up dramatically as I am shipping more product to amazon warehouses than I ever have before, so this increase is also expected.  The services number has changed as I have made a few changes there.  Here are the current services that I am using that make up the above numbers (note that some of these I paid for on an annual basis to obtain a discount):

Inventory Lab – I use their service for listing all of my products for sale on amazon, as well as the majority of my accounting. I use their scanning app Scoutify as my main scanning app.  Current cost is $49.99/month, you can sign up for a 30 day free trial with no credit card required.

Shoeboxed– This is a service that I use to manage my receipts.  I send my receipts off to them in an envelope, they scan them into an online filling system, and mail them back to me.  If you sign up through this link you can receive a 1 month free trial, and a 20% discount on your first 6 months if you become a paying user.  Current cost for the plan I am using is $29.99/month.

Appeagle– This is the repricer I am using.  It has been saving me significant amounts of time manually repricing.  In addition, it reprices items up as well as down, so I have sold many items already for more than I have listed them for.  They have a 14 day free trial, and if you enter coupon code “RYAN_G” you will receive 50% off your first month’s subscription if you elect to become a paying user.  The current cost for this service for me is $25/mo.

Feedback Genius – This is a new appearance this month.  The service automatically sends out emails when items are out for delivery to the customer, as well as 4 days after the item has been delivered.  I tried out the free trial of this service, and it dramatically increased the percentage of orders on which I receive feedback without adding negative/neutral feedback, so I am now a paying customer.

Now, let’s take a look at my cash flow for the month:

One noteworthy item regarding the cash flow side of things is that I am on bi-weekly payouts and only include the payments received during the month, while the cash outflows I include as soon as they are incurred even if the bill is not due at this time.  I do this for both record keeping purposes and simplicity.  One particularly noteworthy item is that my amazon deposit initiated on 12/3/2014 , and while it does not show up on November’s cash flow, if it was added in my cash flow would be positive as that deposit alone is a little over $40K.

So at first glace, this looks pretty scary, but in reality it’s more due to timing. The main item to note is that I continued to spend significantly more than usual on inventory during the month.   I am going to continue to spend heavily through December, and then slow the spending a little bit, so I anticipate significantly positive cash flow in the coming months.

Now I will share some screenshots to provide some support for the above numbers I am sharing.  Please note that the amazon sales number will not be exactly the same as what is shown above, as the screenshot below shows all orders that have been placed (but not necessarily shipped), while the above numbers are only for items that actually shipped during the month.  Due to this the variance is to be expected:

Now for the eBay screenshot:

Overall, I am very happy with the results this month.  The profits are trending upwards significantly, and I believe I am positioned to make December by far my best month this far.  I won’t share exactly where I think the numbers will end up, so you’ll have to come back next month to find out.   If you haven’t checked out the new site, Online Selling Reviews, that I launched in November to help online sellers find the best products and services for their business, head over there and check it out.

I will probably only post 1 to 2 more posts this month on the blog due to the busy time of the year, but will be back to posting about once a week in 2015.  I will be posting throughout the month in the Online Selling Experiment facebook group, so please come join if you want to see my updates and learn from other sellers.

That’s all I have for today, if you have questions or comments please leave them below!